In the thirteenth century, profound changes in Spanish
society drove the invention of fresh poetic forms by the new clerical
class. The term mester de clerecía
(clerical ministry or service) applies to a group of narrative poems
(epics, hagiography, romances) composed by university-trained clerics
for the edification and entertainment of the predominantly illiterate
laity. These clerics, like Gonzalo de Berceo, understood themselves as
cultural intermediaries, transmitting wisdom and values from the past,
at the same time, they were deeply involved in some of the most
contentious and far-reaching changes in lay piety, and in economic and
social structures. The author challenges the predominantly didactic
approach to the verse, in an attempt to historicize the category of the
intellectual, as someone caught in the duality of the worlds of
contingency and absolute values.
The book will have a broad appeal to medievalists, in part because of
the topics covered (feudalism, gender, nationhood, and religion), in
part because many poems are either adaptations from French and Latin or
have counterparts in other literatures (e.g., the romances or Alexander
and Apollonius, the miracles of the Virgin Mary).
Julian Weiss is Reader in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish at King's College London.Contents



1
Introduction Julian Weiss

2
Pollution and Perception in Gonzalo de Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora
Julian Weiss

3
Female Associations: Three Encounters with Holy Women Julian Weiss

4
Dreaming of Empire in El libro de Alexandre
Julian Weiss

5
The Birth of a Nation: Feudal Fictions in El
poema de Fernán González Julian Weiss

6
The Cleric, In Between Julian Weiss